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MTHS Blog

Lark-2018

The Mountain Top Historical presents Hikefest as part of the Catskills Lark in the Park

On Saturday, October 6, 2018 the Mountain Top Historical Society’s Haines Falls campus will be the place to begin your Columbus Day week-end. Starting in the KRT parking lot at 9:00 a.m. There will be a choice of three hikes spreading out to various trail heads around the area with popular experienced hike leaders.

Hike #1: Historic Highlights of North-South Lake

Before it was a campground, the area around North-South Lake was the home of many important business and recreational sites. On this hike, led by Bob Gildersleeve, we will see as many of those sites as we can fit into an easy three hour tour. From our first stop near the South Lake dam we’ll tour the remnants of the Ulster & Delaware Railroad’s turntable, the foundations of the South Lake Ice harvesting camp, and a still standing water tower. The tower and camp will require a short bushwhack which can be avoided by anyone who would rather wait the 10 minutes or so that it will take. From there we will take our cars to other spots within the park to see the sites of Thomas Cole’s Lake with Dead Trees, the location of the Otis Summit Station, and a Catskill and Tannersville Railroad engine shed by North Lake, traces of Rip’s Retreat, The Catskill Mountain House site (including the foundations of one or more out-buildings, and the original location of Artist’s Rock which was a short flat walk from the North Lake Beach.

Hike #2: A Walking Tour of Elka Park

This group will accompany Nancy Allen on a 3-4 mile hike to Katerina Tower and The Colosseum (reservoir) to enjoy the views from this historic community. This is an easy tour. Additional sites may be added depending on the group and the timing.

Hike # 3: Hike to the Hotel Kaaterskill Site

Paul LaPierre and Moe Lemire will lead an exploration of the grounds of the Hotel Kaaterskill. Starting from the South Lake dam they will climb the carriage road to the site. This hike is a repeat of our July hike giving people who were unable to attend in July the opportunity to identify areas seen in the MTHS collection of newly acquired photographs. This is a moderate hike with enough time to take in the remnants of the largest hotel in the area.

All of the hikers will meet at the MTHS campus at 9:00 a.m. and car pool to the different trail heads. The hikes are designed to last about three hours and return to the MTHS for lunch.

Lunch will be hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill with all the fixings including salads, cold drinks and dessert. The cost per person for lunch is $10 and will be served beginning at noon.

At around 1:00 p.m. or as soon as all hikers have returned and had their lunch, we will have a presentation by Bob Gildersleeve featuring the photographs of the Hotel Kaaterskill that were generously donated by the great great grandson of the original owner, George Harding. We have about 50 photos that were apparently taken in 1921 in preparation for the sale of the property. Bob has been making a careful study of the images which include interior views of the billiard room, bowling alley, kitchen, theater, a guest room and other surprises. We are asking for a $5 donation for this program.

We welcome hikers and those interested in hiking or just in the beauty of the Catskill Park to join us for a hike, lunch, a presentation, good company and interesting information. We expect to finish up by 3:00 p.m.

MTHS does not require membership for hike participation however, we encourage you to join as a member or make a donation to the MTHS to support our work. We do request that you register for each hike. Participants can register on our contacts page or by calling (518) 589-6657. Please leave your name, phone number, and # in your party. Schedule subject to change. The latest information is available on our web site http://www.mths.org. Notification of changes, including cancellations due to weather will be made on the web site up to the day of any given hike.

Please make reservations for the hikes, lunch and presentation by Wednesday, October 3rd.

Kaaterskill Floor Plan

Hotel Kaaterskill Talk and Walk July 13 and 14 – can you help?

In a talk by George Harding and me, Bob Gildersleeve, on Friday July 13 we will use photos donated to MTHS by George and other materials to travel in our imagination to the Hotel on the top of South Mountain just a mile from the Catskill Mountain House. We have a vast amount of information, but we could use some help to bring our visit to life. This photo shows the best floor plan that we have. It came from Francis Overbaugh’s “Hotel Kaaterskill Clippings from the Past” which can be found on Tim Mallery’s Catskill Archive Website. There are two difficulties with the image of the floor plan: it is too small (right click and view image to see the best size we have) to read detail and there may be a missing floor. We suspect the floors were numbered in the European practice of saying that the first floor was one flight up. The second floor room numbers that we can read start with a 3 and the 3rd floor rooms start with a 4 and is missing a whole wing that photos show was there. We’ve checked our archives and asked at the County Records room and the Greene County Historical Society and neither have a floor plan of the hotel.

Thanks to Jonathan Palmer at the Vedder, we found the sketch of what seems to be the source material that Overbaugh used for this diagram. Among other things, It shows the purpose of the rooms on the right side by the court yard of the Office floor: from Lobby to tower they were: Passenger elevator and behind it baggage elevator, Porter's room, coat room, reception room closet, barber shop, reading room, smoking room and card room.

On the river side, in the lobby was the office, to its east a private office, then guests rooms to the tower.

The diagrams at the Vedder also confirm that the room numbers on the office floor were in the 100s, the so-called second floor in the 300s, and the "third" floor in the 400's.

Hope to see many of you at the MTHS program on Friday at 7:00, and hope you can come to the hike to the hotel and Laundry on Saturday.

Rip's Back

It's good to see Rip Van Winkle back in his place of honor on the signpost at the MTHS! For 18 years, Rip had weathered the wind, rain, snow, and sun at the top of Kaaterskill Clove and still looked pretty good. Now after a summer of rest and re-painting at the hands of master sign-maker, Kevin Van Hentenryck, he is shining brightly again, greeting the passing parade. Our thanks to the Bank of Greene County Foundation which contributed to Rip's repair in their 2017 funding cycle. And a huge thank you to Kevin for donating his time and talent beyond what we had contracted. May Kevin and the sign continue to contribute to the Mountain Top community. Wave to Rip as you drive by on 23A!

Train station will be open

The historic Ulster and Delaware Train Station on the MTHS campus will be open to the public on a few Saturday afternoons this summer thanks to volunteer Pete Senterman. Pete will be in the station from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. on June 16, July 7, and July 21. He will be your guide through the history of the station using the photos and paintings on exhibit there. It was built in 1913 and opened in 1914 to replace the small station in Haines Falls that was no longer adequate to handle the stream of tourists heading to the hotels and boarding houses in the area. The station has been listed on national and state historic registers. We plan to add additional open house dates in August and September. Come in and check it out!